Futuristic Problem Solving
by liliace
Summary: (Or: If Google had been invented a couple of years earlier) It's not easy to find an answer to your problem when said problem is an immortal Dark Lord trying to kill you. Nevertheless, Google has answers to everything. Oneshot, mild crack.


_A/N: When I don't know something or want advice on how to do something, I google it. So, it got me thinking: what if Google existed back when Harry went to school?_

 _The way he solved his problem is definitely overused in fanfiction, but it's honestly what I see as the easiest course of action._

 _(Reposted the chapter as I fixed some things)_

 _Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and get no profit from this story_

* * *

 **Futuristic Problem Solving**

 _or, alternatively_

 **If Google had been invented a couple of years earlier**

Harry had a problem. Now, most people could say the same about themselves, but Harry highly doubted that their problems involved psychotic, immortal mass murderers after them or being the only one able to kill said psychopath. He had tried to think about it and come up with a good way to solve his problem, but he was still stuck. So, seeing as he was a teenager, he did what any young man in his position would do: ask advice from those older than him.

Sirius, well, he was out for obvious reasons: he was highly insane; no one in their right mind would even joke about him having good ideas (come on, the man had tried to kill a peer via a werewolf!); and, well, he was dead. Falling through the veil of death (or whatever it was called) kinda did that to a person.

Remus. He was a subject of much confusion to Harry, as he had been James' friend, yet never visited Harry when he was sent to his relatives. Harry wasn't as close to the werewolf as he was (had been) to his godfather, but Remus was admittedly wiser and much more responsible than Sirius had ever been, so Harry figured that asking him couldn't hurt. Too bad all he got for an answer was a letter which could be summarized in one sentence: "Trust Dumbledore, he surely has a plan."

So Harry asked for help from the other adults he believed he could trust, such as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Hagrid, and even Professor McGonagall. Unfortunately all of them were of the same opinion as Remus. He had also tried asking Dumbledore himself, but the headmaster had been his old cryptic self and as such had not really managed to reassure the young man.

The Boy Who Lived obviously had also talked to his friends, but since they were within a year of his age, they didn't really know that much more than him (there were limits to even Hermione's research abilities) and as such were unable to help him. (Got a problem with homework? Go to Hermione. A problem related to Quidditch? Ask Ron or Ginny. Have a question about magical animals (hypothetical or not)? Luna's your guy (or girl). Plants are worrying you? Neville surely can help you. But none of them knew anything about defeating an immortal Dark Lord. Normally they would pose such questions to _him_ , but seeing as he was the one with the problem…)

Having exhausted all other sources of information, Harry figured that he could just as well take a shot in the dark and ask his relatives. Who were muggles. And hated magic. As well as him. So, maybe not the best of ideas, but when had Harry claimed that his ideas were good?

Okay, so in hindsight, maybe asking them "How would you go about killing an immortal wizard who has sixty years of experience on you?" while eating dinner wasn't just a bad idea, but a Bad Idea. Harry still didn't see how it could have been worth being locked in his room for five days, though. (With five minute toilet breaks thrice a day. And food pushed through the cat flap twice. Man, his relatives really sucked.)

So he was completely surprised when on the third day, Dudley let him out. Apparently his parents were out and he decided to let his scrawny cousin out of his prison cell and actually use a computer since he felt like he owed Harry for last summer (when Harry totally saved his arse from those Dementors. Which wouldn't have been there in the first place if it wasn't for the Ministry's attempt to get Harry into trouble, but who cared about such little details).

Dudley was also kind enough to give Harry advice (normally the Chosen One would have just laughed at him because the idea of Dudley actually thinking of something smart was ridiculous, but Harry was kind of desperate at that point). Namely, "If you don't know something, google it." Having never had access to a computer before, Harry was pretty confused by that statement until he actually opened the device and clicked the internet icon, which took him straight to Google. So he figured "googling" something involved searching it from said search engine.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"So… Harry, what are you doing?" Ron asked, finally having had enough. Hermione and he had had a silent war over which one of them should address Harry's odd behaviour, and the redhead had cracked first. Kind of predictable really, Harry didn't even know why Ron bothered to argue with the bookworm anymore. He also didn't understand how his friends thought he didn't notice their arguments, no matter silent, as the room always filled with tension during them. So maybe his friends' minds were just a bit too strange (or normal) for him to comprehend.

"I'm preparing for a ritual," he answered while adding another candle to the circle. Also quite predictably, that answer made both his friends pause for a second before the shouting started. Harry would have liked to think himself clever for being able to guess their reactions, but the truth was that they were simply that easy to predict.

"Ritual? Harry, those are – be quiet for a second Ron! – illegal, not to mention dangerous! Where did you even find out about them, not to mention specific enough information to actually perform one?! Oh, please don't tell me that you're doing this without doing the proper research first!"

It stung a bit that his friend thought him that stupid, but considering some of his previous ideas and how Hermione was probably a genius, it was quite understandable really, so Harry decided not to get offended. Instead he laughed mentally at what he imagined Ron's face to look like after Hermione had kindly told him to shut up while simultaneously answering the bookworm.

"I did do my research, why do you think I spent so much time in the library? Seriously, if I wanted to feel closer to Sirius I'd have chosen another place to do so – like his room, or more likely a random broom closet at Hogwarts. And what the Ministry doesn't know can't hurt me." The Boy Who Lived thought his arguments to be rather reasonable, but based on the rant Hermione went on, she didn't share his opinion. Ron just stood there nodding at some points their female friend made and looking unsure whether he should try to stop Harry or go fetch an adult.

Too bad for the two of them that he had locked the door and shielded the area the ritual was to take place in rather thoroughly – underage magic couldn't be detected when the performer was in a place under the Fidelius charm. Wonder why the adults failed to mention that fact (then again, considering the trouble the teenagers usually got into, he probably had his answer).

"Harry, are you sure this is a good idea..?" Ron's hesitant voice brought him back from his thoughts where he had escaped from Hermione's nagging. He loved his friend, really, he did, but did she really think he would do a ritual without taking safety measures? Though considering his last plan, which was to save his godfather, brought them to a trap and got said godfather killed, maybe she had a right to be hesitant about trusting his ideas.

"Not really, but it can't hurt, can it?" Harry stated as he finished the last touches to his sign (drawn on the floor) and started chanting in Latin before his two friends could say "yes, yes it can" or try to stop him. They froze in shock for a brief moment before dashing to the door and trying in vain to either open it or shout for help through it. They didn't dare interrupt Harry, though, since messed up rituals could be even more dangerous than working ones.

The Chosen One felt the atmosphere in the room change when he got to the end, and a being popped into the room when he said the last part. Conveniently, thanks to Harry's careful planning, the being ended up right in the middle of the sigil – which was there to trap the being in place.

"Who dares to summon me?" The voice was probably meant to sound scary but having faced Voldemort several times now (nothing could sound freakier than that pseudo-hissing. Nothing), the attempt seemed kind of funny and pathetic to Harry (though the hood covering his face was a nice touch). His two friends weren't quite as lucky and he could practically hear them screaming in terror and shouting multiple curses at him in their minds; they weren't quite brave enough to start shouting about his questionable intelligence in front of an obviously strong creature, even if both of them were great examples of Gryffindor courage.

"I do. So, I figured you could help me out here. You obviously grew up, and seem kind of fine, so I'm assuming that you killed Him-Who-Is-An-Asshole, and I was hoping you could do it again. I'm after all just a teenager, and have pretty much no hope of doing it myself. Also, your only way to get back is to complete the task your summoner – that's me, by the way – set you. And you don't need to worry about disappearing or something since summoning you either created a shift in the timeline and as such a new one was born, or you already did this and as such it happened the same way to you. So, lend me a helping hand?"

The being tilted its head as it – he – took it all in and slowly nodded, glancing at Harry's friends who were staring at the Boy-Who-Lived open-mouthed: Hermione because she had figured what his second to last sentence meant, and Ron because he had talked to a powerful being so casually. Harry just flashed the two of them a reassuring grin (which didn't seem to help at all) before rubbing a part of the sigil off (there goes two hours of work). The creature (who looked like a human, had dark hair and green eyes, and could have passed for James Potter's twin) thanked Harry before disappearing with a crack. Only then did Hermione and Ron come out of their frozen shock and started talking at the same time. To the boy wonder it sounded something like this:

"Harry, I can't believe – What the bloody – you did that, how – hell, mate, what – could you have – was that?! – been so irresponsible, do you have – Why did it look – any idea about the – like you, and – consequences this could – did you just really – have on you and – summon a dark creature – the whole world, never mind – which is illegal and extremely – time! You might have just – dangerous, mate! – destroyed the entire universe! Didn't I tell you that awful things happen to people who meddle with time?! How could you possibly have thought this to be a good idea?!"

At that point Harry kind of tuned Hermione out (again), as he could guess what she was going to say, and she wouldn't listen to him before getting the rant out of her system. He tuned back in just in time to hear "Are you listening to me, Harry James Potter?" and took on a serious expression.

"Of course I am, Hermione. I know you probably don't believe me, but I actually researched this thoroughly. And in case you didn't hear when I explained it to the older me, time isn't messed up because of my actions since I either just created a new timeline and as such he came from a different reality, or he had already done what I just did himself and I will grow up to do it when my younger counterpart summons me – which in that case just happened. Either way, it's fine."

Harry could see that she was thinking it through, and because of her experience with a time turner, she would probably arrive to the conclusion that his latter theory was right and give up on that account. That however did not mean that she wouldn't still be upset with him for using a supposedly dangerous ritual. (But come on, he had drawn the sigil to keep the summoned one in it in case something went wrong (which it didn't). That was plenty of safety measures.)

She and Ron both were, in fact, glaring at him and then pointed in sync to the door, and their younger friend took this to mean "open the fucking door right now so we can go tell the adults what the fuck you just did so that they can lecture you and figure out whether you just fucked things up big time or not", and saw it quite reasonable to follow their silent orders.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"… So the final horcrux was you, which is why I randomly shot a killing curse at you. Obviously I knew you would survive since I'm alive. You should read through your notes when you turn forty so that you'll remember everything when you're summoned, okay? I'm going to go now, take care! And just so you know, Dumbledore has no right to order you around outside of school – you only need permission from your guardians – your relatives – to stay somewhere else during summer. Oh, and while Ginny is indeed quite wonderful and worth having a crush on, you might want to 'get to know' other people before committing yourself to a single one."

With those words of wisdom Harry the Older disappeared from the younger one's room in Grimmauld Place without so much as a pop. The teenager should probably be worried about how he just got information from someone who only had the information because he was told it in the first place, and wonder how the information even came to be, but he figured it would be too much of a headache after getting hit by Avada Kedavra (again), waking up, and taking rigorous notes on what his older self told him. So he just went to sleep and decided to ask Hermione about it later.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"… And that's how I'm sure that Voldemort's dead now. Any questions?"

Harry had barged in during the Order meeting (which were nowadays mostly about what Harry the Older had been doing as Voldemort had been still laying low. And since the Death Eaters were popping to the Ministry tied up and unconscious, they didn't have to worry about them either. So basically they just let the older Harry do all the work. Lazy bastards) and explained without too many details how Voldie had finally perished from the Earth. It went without being said that the Order members were quite shocked after his little tale.

"Yes, my boy, I do in fact have some. How did you come up with the idea for such a ritual, and how did you manage to execute it?" the Headmaster asked Harry.

The young man had previously only told them all that since they didn't seem fit to help him, he had just found help elsewhere. That had not really reassured the adults, but there was little they could do short of drugging him with Veritaserum or using Legilimency on him. Both of those were out since Harry had clearly told them that if they tried to do such a thing, he would move to France and sue them all for illegal actions towards a minor.

Needless to say, considering all the ways Dumbledore had fucked Harry over before, he let the teenager have his way for once. Now though, after everything was over and done with, they probably thought that Harry would be more willing to share information with them. And they'd be right, as the constant threat on his life disappearing had indeed made Harry happier and more open.

"I got the idea from one of the people with whom I was discussing a 'hypothetical' situation of an immortal trying to kill you, and the ritual came from hours and hours spent going through Google results and searching through the Black family library. But mostly Google. It's a godsend, really."

* * *

 _A/N: I'm not entirely satisfied with how this turned out, but since I'm highly unlikely to ever edit it anymore than I already have, I figured I could just publish it as it is._

 _Please review! (Seriously, even a "nice" will make my day)_


End file.
